Shin Koihime Musou: Cowardly Heroics
by Ranger9000
Summary: One moment of desperation by someone completely unexpected throws the plot off the rails. The one girl who never got a shot gets a chance to prove her worth, and one poor bastard ends up getting pulled into a world normally reserved for women with superpowers. He'll need luck, guile, and a good sense of when to hide behind someone more powerful to survive now.


**Author's Notes:** So ya, I'm starting up a new story, no this does not mean B-Team is cancelled. It's just been hit by a serious case of writers block combined with me not having a plot outline when I started that one. I'm hoping I've learned from some of my mistakes I made with the start of B-Team, and this story has an actually detailed plot plan already.

Thanks to Heroism for officially betaing this and to my two friends who gave the initial draft a once over. As always feel free to review, if you love, hate, or are neutral to my story, I'd like to hear it!

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Koihime Musou, Shin Koihime Musou, or anything related to the copyright. If I did then Shin Koihime Musou would already have an official English translation

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><p><strong>Chapter 1: Battle of Sishui Pass<strong>

"First rank, brace" A heavily bearded man shouted over a mass of nearly 500 people attempting to follow his orders as best they could, which resulted in a ragged line of spears being pointed in vaguely the right direction, along with a few spears being dropped to the ground and more then one person knocked over by a wild haft.

In the far back of the 'formation' was a man by the name of Huang who looked just like any other soldier in the group; tanned skin thick with musculature from a life of farming, simple clothing that spoke of low income, and light brown eyes. The only real distinguishing trait of the man was that he was slightly taller than average, though he was certainly nowhere near the tallest man in the group.

As he watched the rest of the conscripts attempt to do what they were told, Huang looked over how he had gotten to where he was currently. At 21 he had spent his life as a farmer; admittedly, a farmer who may or may not have avoided his taxes and sold the extra food to procure funds with which to leave his remote village, but still a farmer.

Unfortunately, his generation had apparently been cursed with interesting times. Even in his backwater of a village he had heard of the chaos tearing through China. Following the initial news—the tales of a group calling themselves the Yellow Turbans cutting a swath through the east—Huang had continued working his land. The problems were far away after all, and there was no point in worrying about someone else's peril.

Then came the local bandits; not that they were really a new problem—no, the only real difference was that these bandits were well-organized, and without a central authority to fight them. Travellers to the village, caravans to market; all of them began to stop. Fearing the local bandits led by women of great power, what few people still reached Huang's remote village told of a demon trio capable of cutting men down like wheat.

Still, Huang's own life was not terribly affected. Sure, he couldn't make as much money on the side, but no taxmen came either; so he and his village had more than enough food to survive the winter. If things had stayed that way, Huang wouldn't have really paid any mind. It would have put a damper on his plans to eventually leave the village behind, but at least it was safe. The problem was that the problems weren't over yet. Instead of a tax man, the next year brought the army.

A noble astride his horse led a platoon of a hundred soldiers to the village, bringing tidings of the world outside, and that every able-bodied man within the town was to come with them to serve in the armies of the rightful Han Emperor. Just being farmers, unarmed and unprepared, none of them were exactly planning to resist the soldiers; so Huang and his fellows found themselves being led away.

That was how Huang found himself drafted into the army, and also how he found himself working under one of the bandit-demon women he had heard of almost a year ago, apparently now turned to the Han's side.

"Brace to the rear!" *Thunk*

That was how Huang found himself sprawled out on the ground as the eager man beside him, while turning around, bashed him in the back of the head with his spear.

Huang quickly pulled himself to his feet to avoid gaining the rather dangerous attention of the drill sergeants. Assuming the same stance as the rest of the men in his row, he quickly glanced around and gulped as he saw that he might not have gone as unnoticed as he had hoped. Standing nearby, glaring at the entire congregation of soldiers, stood General Kayuu—otherwise known as the former bandit lord he was now fighting under.

If there was one thing everyone would know about General Kayuu, it was that the woman was frightening; emphasized by the axe she wielded which was significantly larger than her. The other thing that a few less people would say was that the General was extremely good-looking. She had neck-length silver hair, an average bust, and a skimpy outfit to hug her curves in all the right places. Though, considering the few other generals that Huang had seen in command of the other Han forces in the area, that seemed to be a given. The fact that they were all female wasn't unusual for any of the conscripts; they had all heard tales of great female generals of past generations.

Still, the primary thing was that she was frightening, and she was currently turning a very virulent glare on the various conscripts assembled on the field. Even though Huang was only glared at for a moment as the General's sight passed over her, he had to keep his legs from shaking in fear.

"You are all terrible. Give me ten laps!" Huang's attention was taken away from the General when the drill sergeant shouted, apparently having had enough of the conscript's ragtag formation, and when the laps came to an end the farmer-turned-soldier would find that the General had left.

*Scene Break*

Later that evening Huang was worrying even more then he had under General Kayuu's glare, namely because it was his turn on guard duty on the walls that guarded Sishui pass. Sentry duty was a job that gave him a very good view of the camp fires of the Anti-Totaku coalition army, and the sight of tens of thousands of campfires made Huang wonder how they ever planned to win.

At the very least the coalition didn't seem too eager to attack during the night, so Huang could rest assured in that he wasn't likely going to be killed by an arrow out darkness or something. Instead he was forced to sit and rub his hands in the hopes of warding off the cold that descended into the mountains during the late hours.

There would have been something even better for ridding the cold, but the booze rations they had received due to the impending battle hadn't really been enough to do more then give a bit of a taste; but at the same time Huang now knew where they were storing the precious rations.

Glancing left and right, Huang saw that the other sentries seemed to be either drifting to sleep or were not paying attention to anything other than the torches ahead of them. That was perfect for the former farmer, and he slipped away from his watch without disturbing any of the other guards.

Sneaking through the sleeping camp, Huang went from tent to tent, dodging the few patrols that wandered the fort. Then he reached the supply tent that he knew contained the alcohol. Like the wall sentries, the two in charge of guarding the alcohol tent both seemed to be half-asleep. That made Huang's task a lot easier.

Slipping around to the back of the tent, Huang lifted one of the flaps and slipped inside. Around the tent were huge stacks of barrels of alcohol, but the farmer knew that trying to sneak back to the walls with a large barrel would be a disaster waiting to happen. Instead he rummaged around a bit and found a box containing multiple bottles of wine. With a victorious smile, the man grabbed one of the bottles and slipped it into his clothes before ducking back out of the tent.

Once back at the wall, he took some time to enjoy his prize, sipping some of the superior drink straight from the bottle—at least until the sentry beside him stirred and looked over at him. Huang could only stare back for a few moments before he raised the bottle to the other guy, willing to share the drink if it meant he wasn't going to get reported and lashed.

Tension hung in the air for a moment longer, and then the other man gave a toothy smile and accepted the drink. Soon a few other guards came along to join in, and the bottle was finished quicker than any of them would have liked; but at least they were warm now.

As the sun started to crest the horizon—at which time the bottle was well-hidden—an officer came to the wall. "Every one of you, report to your units immediately. The General plans to march out against the enemy by the time it's bright enough for our archers."

Then just as quickly as he arrived, the officer left, leaving behind a whole group of stunned soldiers. Huang was the first to speak. "Why the hell are we leaving behind a perfectly good fortress to attack the enemy head-on?"

The other soldiers started muttering similar thoughts, at least until one of the men (a giant of a lifer who towered over everyone there) spoke up with rumbling laugh. "Don't worry about it lads, I'm sure it'll turn out fine. We got General Kayuu on our side after all."

*Scene Break*

A few hours later, things certainly were not fine; a fact punctuated by the former speaker gone flying overhead along with a dozen other corpses, tossed into the air by a blow backed by strength few mortals could hope to match.

It had all started okay; even if they had been facing a truly large force, it had seemed that only the forces from Shoku were actually engaging them. Even still, at the time Huang could only grip his spear and try to suppress the shakes running through his body. He could see his death in the soldiers across from him, because surely they were all well-trained, unlike him: a man handed a spear, drilled for about two weeks and told to go die for a lord he had never met, seen, or even known about a month ago.

When the enemy charged he had nearly run for home right then and there, but the mass of bodies behind him kept him from doing so, and when they had been ordered to counter charge the ex-farmer was grateful that he wasn't a man on the front line. He was much too close for his own liking.

He was forced to watch for nearly twenty minutes as the battle got closer and closer to him. The lines of soldiers ahead of him had initially fallen slowly, at least until the enemy commanders had arrived on the field. A girl that from afar he could scarcely believe was old enough to be allowed on the battlefield proved her worth when in minutes she left a trail of broken corpses behind her like a force of nature. While at the same time, an older woman that Huang might have admired for her beauty in different circumstances—namely if she wasn't cutting down his comrades left and right—was supporting the armageddon loli.

It was then that his brief acquaintance from sentry duty went flying overhead, and Huang could only fear what was coming, knowing he was going to die at the hands of either the soldiers or the two hurricanes that were the enemy commanders. Then, just as he was about to say 'Screw it' and run for his life, consequences be damned, the two enemy commanders were taken out of the picture. Kayuu appeared to simultaneously engage them both.

Then Huang didn't have time to watch anymore, suddenly finding himself on the front line and having to fend off a Shoku soldier armed much like he was; though the Shoku man had the advantage of armour, something Huang could only wish he had as he dodged a spear thrust from the soldier.

Thrusting back desperately, Huang saw his spear bounce off his opponent's armour, leaving him open to being stabbed right back. Closing his eyes and bracing for the pain, Huang hung for a few moments in waiting for his death. When it didn't come he cracked open his eyes again only to see his enemy lying on the ground before him, a small hole in the side of his helmet with a rock lodged in it. The battle between Kayuu and the enemy commanders had shifted much closer to the poor conscript during his own fight, and apparently the sheer force of the blows being thrown about had kicked up a rock and killed the man across from him.

Suddenly free of an opponent, and no enemy really risking getting close enough to the battling women to come after him, Huang found himself free to observe the battlefield again from just outside the perimeter of the two-vs-one fight.

What he saw was quite worrying for him. He observed that the numbers of Totaku troops were now drastically outweighed by the Coalition forces, and he also saw that Kayuu was starting to lose ground to her two opponents. Even as he watched, Huang saw what was probably going to be the final strike; the black-haired enemy commander having the upper hand over Kayuu, and the conscript was faced with the knowledge that any moment now he would likely die at the hands of one of the two opponents—more than likely the smaller of the two, given the earlier displays of destructive force.

So in a split second, Huang came to a conclusion that was both self-serving and selfless, and would change the course of history. Raising his still-unbloodied spear above his head, the farmer put all his strength born of years of backbreaking labour into a single toss. Throwing the long weapon across the not-all-that long distance between him and the ongoing battle, he prayed to every ancestor that would listen to guide his spear to the black-haired woman, thus saving Kayuu so she could fight the loli and maybe help him live another few minutes. It seemed they had listened, as his spear flew true.

It was just unfortunate that all the ancestors in the world couldn't help Huang actually harm one of the women whose skill and strength was in superhuman territory. It was not even within his ability to actually hinder the black-haired commander, who seemingly took his thrown spear in stride. The enemy commander batted it out of the air in the same motion that brought the back of her weapon into the side of Kayuu's head. The force sent Huang's general flying through the air like a doll with its strings cut, and right into Huang himself.

The poor conscript didn't have a hope in hell of dodging the flying woman, and after a painful impact Huang went flying through the air for a moment before crashing into something squishy, yet still hard enough that he was out cold before he even had a chance to settle.

Huang wasn't exactly sure how much later it had been when he woke up, but he found himself in the dark, with only a single line of light coming to where he was. He also felt incredibly heavy; like his body was pinned down. Blinking his eyes a few times, he saw that his observation was quite correct. He was, in fact, pinned down by the weight of bodies above him; the small amount of light being the only view to the world outside the pile of dead bodies he had apparently been launched into by the force of Kayuu hitting him.

Speaking of his general of two weeks, the white-haired woman was currently in the pile with him, somehow having gotten tangled up on his side. Even in the time it took him to notice her, Huang was able to tell she was breathing, so at the very least he had did something somewhat right. He also wasn't dead yet and he couldn't hear any sounds of battle, so maybe he had actually succeeded in his plan to survive this hellish fight.

Shifting himself so he could look out the hole to the outside world, he saw a rather terrifying sight. Death was littered about the field around him, and there were a few more piles like his one where the fighting had been particularly thick. At the same time, though it looked like the fighting had stopped, the only live people Huang could see were what seemed to be a few civilians digging around the corpses.

Huang actually had to suppress a cheer as he realized his survival of the battle. A sudden shout from a pile of dead bodies was bound to garner someone's attention. Instead Huang, who had been smart enough to pull one over on the imperial tax collectors, put his mind to work on making sure he used this stroke of good fortune to get to safety. Pushing himself out of the pile, he glanced around and noticed that no one seemed to have noticed him, so he searched the pile for the first Shoku soldier he could find.

Quickly stripping the dead man of his clothes, the man's armour would be too obvious and people would wonder what a soldier was doing wandering what appeared to be a fully barren battlefield—therefore, Huang would have to pass as a civilian. Luckily that was something the farmer would be able to do quite well, given how he was one not long ago.

Then after he got changed he reached back in and pulled Kayuu out, too. It might slow him down and bring the risk of his detection if anyone happened to notice the prominent figure, but Huang wasn't about to leave the still-breathing general here to be captured or, worse yet, burned along with the pile. On top of that he honestly had no idea where he was, and the general could likely guide him back to a major city once she woke up.

The next step on Huang's escape list was acquiring a cart. A single man dragging the 'corpse' of the unfortunately rather distinctive, dead enemy general would likely be stopped and forced to hand over the body. If he had a cart, he could at least hide Kayuu under a few other bodies and act like he was taking them to burial or to be burned or something. Fortunately for him a cart was quite easy to get on a battlefield. The man didn't even have far to walk and get a handcart that had been used by his former compatriots to hold extra arrows.

The cart was still half-full of the death dealing-shafts, and Huang briefly considered sweeping them off before he realized that he could probably sell them all for a very good price. So instead he pulled the cart back toward where he left Kayuu and tossed a few bodies on it to act as a mat; then laying down Kayuu and her weapon, and then another layer of bodies.

After making sure the former general was both hidden and still able to breathe, Huang departed. He headed toward the other civilians, and then to the camp, and made it safely beyond the borders of the battlefield.


End file.
